Beggars Can't Be
by threedays
Summary: I hate that saying, "Beggars can't be choosers." Like if you're poor you should be okay with wearing somebody else's nasty old mothbally hand-me-downs to the tenth grade.


_I just feel like writing a bunch of random Wee and TeenChester oneshots tonight. Go figure._

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><p><strong>BEGGARS CAN'T BE<strong>

Dean opens the bag even though I already said I don't want anything out of it.

"How do you know you don't want anything out of it if you're not gonna even open it, Bitch?"

"Shut up, Jerk, I can smell the friggin' mothballs!"

He angles an eyebrow at me. Pauses with a half-smirk. "Don't say 'friggin'.'"

I slump and roll my eyes, feeling the fight drain out of me because that's Dean's special talent. He's almost as good at exhausting me out of a fight as he is angering me into one. "Why shouldn't I?" I argue weakly. "You say it all the time."

"I'm me, Sam," he explains. "When I say it, your brain knows to substitute the F-bomb. When _you_ say it, it's like hearing a little Kindergartner repeating Daddy's curse words because somebody pulled her pigtails."

_Holy crap, I hate my brother sometimes._

Taking my silence for agreement or defeat – I'm sure he doesn't really care which – Dean opens the bag the rest of the way, weak black trash bag fading to brown where it's stretched inside his fingerprints. Stupid school guidance counselor couldn't even spring for a sturdy trash bag? This is one of those Dollar Store things. I guess the poor kids at her school aren't worth Hefty.

Dean takes a whiff, leans back chuckling. "Pshew! You weren't lyin'. Smells like an old lady's underwear drawer."

"Gross."

He reaches into the bag and pulls out the first garment foisted off on me by the well-meaning school staff, who expressed concern that my "treasured garments" were perhaps "not plentiful enough" and that my wardrobe could use some "sprucing up." Which is teacher-talk for, _I know you're poor. Here, have some hand-me-downs that nobody ever wanted to be caught dead in in the first place._

This is not the first time we've been handed the Bag of Shame.

I will admit, though, that it's the first time anyone's given us a pink silk skirt.

Dean wiggles his eyebrows. "Got something you wanna tell me about you and this guidance counselor?"

"Yeah. Clearly she's an idiot." I swipe the skirt out of his hand onto the floor.

Dean doesn't let that stop him from pulling out the next garment: a pair of jeans with holes cut in them, all up and down the legs.

"Idiot," I say again. "Those are against dress code anyways."

"Beggers can't be choosers," Dean says, which makes my blood boil, not at him but at the saying itself. Like if you're poor you should be okay with wearing somebody else's nasty old mothbally hand-me-downs. Even if some of them are a pink silk skirt.

"What else did the old bat send?" I don't usually speak ill of teachers, but this whole situation is ticking me off. I'm fifteen. The other kids at school wear stuff they bought anywhere from Macy's to Wal-Mart; even the Goodwill would be better than shopping in the Bag of Shame.

Dean pulls the third garment out of the bag: a stiff polo shirt with wide blue and yellow stripes, collar crooked with age and stained with sweat.

"Beggars can't be sophomores," I mutter. "If I go to school in that, the other kids'll kick my ass."

"The other kids'll try," Dean growls.

I glare at the ugly garment for a long time, but I also pick at the unraveling hem of my own worn T-shirt. I've had the shirt on for two days in a row. The jeans for six. My only other pair of jeans got shredded on a hunt and I lost two of my good shirts – and by good I mean "no holes" and "not the color of cat piss" – in fights at my last two schools.

Truth is, unless I want to go to school tomorrow smelling like one of the things we hunt, I'm going to have to pick something out of the mothball bag. And wear it. One of Dad's rules is that we do not put pride before common sense. Clothes are clothes. They're going to get torn up or bloodstained anyway, so if we can save money by letting somebody give us clothes, we shouldn't complain.

If it wouldn't make Dean tease me about needing a Midol, I would probably cry.

"Aww, Sammy," Dean says. "Chin up. Check this one out. It is so you!" And out of the bag he hauls the most disgusting, dilapidated, demented excuse for a sweater I have ever seen. Thing's got fuzzballs_ glued_ to it. On _purpose_. From the lumpy shape as it hangs in Dean's hand, I can tell it's got shoulder pads – it looks like it's shrugging, as if somebody asked it how in the hell it got so ugly. Whole thing's the color of strained peas and there are freakin'_ kittens_ on it.

"Holy shit," I mutter. "Somebody needs to hunt that thing."

There is a beat of silence. And then Dean starts laughing so hard, he drops the bag and a whole pile of mothbally, funky-colored clothing rolls out.

Dean's laugh almost – _almost – _makes me smile. But looking at the pile of clothing, I can't imagine what I'm going to wear to school tomorrow. I wish it were permissible to call in naked. _Hello, this is Sam Winchester. I'm sorry, but I won't be at school today. Sick? No, I'm not sick. Just nude and it's February …_

How on Earth did this become my life?

Before I can stress any further, Dean eyes me, taking note of my glum expression. Then he starts tugging the puffball-kitten sweater on over his T-shirt.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Damn," he wheezes, head popping through the neckhole, stretching it a bit. "What's this thing made out of, wicker? It itches like a bitch!"

Startled out of my funk, I survey my brother in the kitten sweater. As if sensing the shift in my mood, he grins wider and stands on the bed. Then he steps into the pink silk skirt and begins to tug it up over his jeans. It'll only go up to his knees, but he manages to curtsy anyway.

I can't help it. I explode with laughter. The sight of my brother in pink silk and fluffy fuzzballs is simply too much.

Even better is the fact that Dean doesn't know that Dad's just appeared the doorway behind him, looking thoroughly confused and not just a little frightened.

"Boys?" Dad says. "What in the name of -"

And Dean whips around super fast to face Dad, except he forgets about being bound at the knees by the ugliest skirt on the planet, and he falls like timber to the mattress, landing in the middle of the clothing pile.

"Ah – nothing, Dad," Dean stammers, spitting out a mouthful of sweater vest. "Just fooling around with this gross old bag of clothes somebody left in the closet. Hey, think we could trade them in at that thrift store uptown, try to get Sammy some new school stuff?"

Hope soars. And Dad nods. And Dean winks.

_Holy crap, I love my brother sometimes._


End file.
